'Would you do me one more favor?' I said to Mercer. I had shifted my body now so that I was holding the phone to my left ear, my back to Hoyt, with the magnificent skyline of Manhattan receding before me.
'Shoot.'
'Call Christine Kiernan, will you? She triangulated a phone number for a new case last week. Tell her it's urgent. Ask her to do a trap-and-trace on my line immediately. She's got all the forms and the contacts at TARU. She can do it in minutes. Keep an eye on me till we get back. Track my coordinates, please?'
'Stay on with me, Alex. Just stay on the line.'
Hoyt shut off his receiver and hung it in its cradle. He jerked the steering wheel as hard as he could and pushed ahead on the throttle, turning the boat completely around, a full one-eighty, heading back to the mouth of the great river. I fell down against the seat and the small phone flipped out of my hand onto the wet floor, sliding across out of reach to the other side of the tender.
Find me, I prayed silently to Mercer. Find me before I'm sleeping with the fishes.
39
I hugged the leather seat cushion and tried to balance myself against it on my way to grab the cell phone. Hoyt had let go of the wheel for a few seconds. Steadier than I as the boat crossed its own wake, he stepped ahead, leaned over, and picked it up before I could get to it.
'Is there some change in-?' I tried to ask without broadcasting my alarm.
'We're going back to the Chelsea Piers. Just stay where you are. I'm going to bounce us around a bit.' He was looking angry now, under way at excessive speed and rolling me across the stern of the sturdy Whaler.
He pressed a button on the phone and held it to his ear with one hand. He must have hit redial. If he heard Mercer's voice and not Sarah's, he'd know I'd been lying.
Mercer probably answered immediately, since we had been disconnected abruptly.
Hoyt turned to me and sneered, throwing the phone into the water and laughing as he spoke into the breeze, 'Sorry, wrong number.'
There were craft of all shapes and sizes zigzagging across the Hudson on this fall afternoon. I wasn't able to stand up without falling at the speed we were going, no one could hear me over the noise of the various engines if I were to call out for help across the water, and the only option left-waving my arms in the air-would look like a friendly greeting to most boaters out on a sunny afternoon.
'Don't even think about it, Alex. Just sit nice and still.'
I was anything but still, tossing around on the seat cushion as Hoyt purposely steered the boat back and forth, almost hot-rodding it on the chop to keep me off-balance.
'Over here,' he said, snarling at me. He pointed to a spot directly next to his feet.
I didn't move. Hoyt spun the wheel sharply to the left, hard enough to knock me across the length of the rear seat and send me crashing onto the floor.
'Damn it. I said I want you over here.'
I crouched and started moving in his direction, looking everywhere for some kind of tool that I could use to defend myself.
We were below Forty-second Street now-I could track the West Side Highway ramp descending and the roadway curving-but Hoyt gave no sign of slowing down as we came into striking distance of Chelsea Piers.
'We're going to let the boy be for a while, Alex. You and I have things to talk about.'
There wasn't going to be time for a long conversation before we passed the southern tip of Manhattan heading into Upper New York Bay and the ocean that stretched out forever beyond the Verrazano Bridge. The Atlantic was a massive graveyard that I didn't want to visit today.
'Your captain will be back-'
'I know, I know. And your buddies will be looking for you all the way from Chelsea to the Dover cliffs. But I just told my crew that the damn engine in this boat is acting up again. And my unreliable steering column-I meant to have it repaired in Nantucket. It would be a terrible thing if I lost control and it crashed up on the rocks,' he said, pausing to glance down at me. 'With one of us still aboard.'
There had to be a knife or bottle opener or sharp-edged object in some compartment or other. Everything seemed to be stowed tightly in place, and I saw nothing loose that I could grasp for protection.
Hoyt went on. 'I just told the captain that you insisted on seeing the Statue of Liberty up close. So this excursion will be, after all, your very own idea, Alex. That's the way he'll tell it.'
I was sitting in a puddle now, and when Hoyt dipped the boat on its side to throw me off-guard from time to time, I shivered from my thighs to my shoulders as the cold water saturated my clothing.
With one hand, he unlatched a drawer beneath the windshield and reached in, removing a short length of rope and dangling it in front of my face.
Paige Vallis. What had Squeeks told me about her cause of death? She'd been strangled by some kind of ligature. Probably a thin rope.
Hoyt let go of the wheel for a few seconds while he made a sailor's knot, deftly, as if he'd done it hundreds of times before. Maybe even in the laundry room of Vallis's apartment building. Again he let it swing before my eyes.
'What was it that changed your mood, Alex? What did the detective tell you that seemed to frighten you so terribly?'
'Nothing scared me. I-uh, I was just worried about Mike. He was talking to me about Mike Chapman. Nobody's heard from him since he ran off after Andrew Tripping. Mercer's concerned, too.'
Hoyt grabbed a handful of my hair in his left hand and smashed my head backward against the edge of the cockpit door.
'Lying never helps, Alex. You're smart enough to know that. I heard you say the name Fabian. Now why in the world would you be talking about him right now?'
I didn't answer. I had found the man who was the missing link between the two murders-McQueen Ransome and Paige Vallis.
'Something the friendly detective said shocked you. Why don't you slip this rope over your ankles while you think about telling me what it was exactly?'
He lowered the noose and I fumbled at putting my feet through the opening. Though I was a very strong swimmer, I couldn't do anything if I went into the water with a restraint around my legs.
'I thought about putting it over your neck instead, but then if one of us survives this little accident-and surely one of us will-I wouldn't want to have to explain those burn marks that would have been on your throat.' Hoyt pulled up on the end of the rope and it tightened over the cuff of my pants, jerking me closer to him and lashing my head against the boat's floor.
My hands were free, and I thought about striking at his knees to bring him down with me. But the cord on my legs limited my mobility, and although he was shorter than I, he seemed to be strong-and determined.
'So you were saying to Mr. Wallace-something about a photograph and a boy-possibly Fabian Ransome?'
I couldn't speak. I didn't know what kind of answer Hoyt was looking for.
'Now's the time to talk,' he said, lifting his leg to deliver a swift kick to my side. 'Heard you're never at a loss for words in the courtroom.'
I looked up at him, everything coming into focus. 'So you're the one paying for Tiffany Gatts's lawyers. You're the one she's afraid will have her killed if she talks.'
He was weaving between a ferry and some smaller boats, maneuvering through heavier traffic as we got down to Battery Park City and its busy marina, nearing the southern tip of Manhattan.
I could see the majestic statue of Lady Liberty straight ahead of us, green copper skin glinting in the sunlight, her torch raised high as she appeared to be striding forward. She loomed over the harbor, welcoming the tired, poor, and huddled masses, her 'mild eyes,' as Lazarus described them, blind to my dilemma.
I thought of the image of Liberty on the face of the Double Eagle. Was I going to die because of a useless twenty-dollar piece of gold?
Hoyt was clear of some of the traffic and ready to talk again.
